Just saw it again. While I do see the flaws, I still enjoyed it. The story was all over the place, the editing was wonky for the first third of the movie, but the performances were good. And I'm glad they were able to give Carrie Fisher a proper send off.
That being said, can we all agree that JJ Abrams is an tremendously overrated director. He's great a visually telling a story, but with everything else, he sucks. The guys should just be a DP and leave the real directing to people with talent.
Also, it is now painfully obvious that there was never an outline drawn up for these three movies. If they had made a set outline of who the characters are, where the started from and where they were going to end up, and if they had created the bare bones of a cohesive narrative, this trilogy could have been so much better. As it is, it feels like JJ created a story full of his f'ing mystery boxes, and either didn't tell Rian his thoughts on what should come next, or he did and Rian just ignored him, and then JJ tried to bring it back to the story he wanted to tell. In either case, while some blame has to go to both directors, I'm putting the bulk of the blame on Kathleen Kennedy and Disney. They royally screwed the pooch, and the only person to come out looking good in this whole mess is George Lucas, because suddenly the Prequels are looking a whole lot better.
Also- I wonder if they are trying to set up future movies focusing on Finn and those other former Storm Troopers becoming Jedi. It sounded to me like all of those who deserted did so because they felt the Force.
I also loved the fact that the last thing we see Lando doing is picking up a lady. Some things never change.
And hey- they didn't kill Lando! I guess because Leia died, they didn't need to kill two original cast members in this movie.
It's funny you bring up Indiana Jones. At the end, when Rey turns Palpatine's lightning back on his face, when it started burning away I was getting flashbacks to Raiders when they opened the Ark.
He probably influenced the Midichlorians to create life in some woman, probably from Tattooine.
Okay, just having rewatched TFA-
Rey said she never flew the Falcon before. I don't recall her ever saying she never flew at all. I know she stayed on the planet, but it felt like she had some piloting skills- probably from her speeder. Kind of like how Anakin could suddenly fly a starfighter after only ever having piloted Podracers in Episode I.
Her innate use of the Force- again, Anakin did the same things to a degree in Episode I. He used the Force for Podracing. As for Rey's ability to use all of those abilities- well, I chalk that up to her being Poppa Palpatine's Granddaughter. Of course she'll be strong in the Force, and of course she'll start using abilities that she never had before.
Rey beating Kylo... sigh. Kylo had just killed his father, and then had been shot in the side. He was wounded and distracted. Also, Finn got a shot in on him first before Rey got the lightsaber.
And Rey did make mistakes, just not many of them. She did let loose the Rathtars on Han's ship.. but yeah, that seems to be the only real mistake I can think of in the first movie.